And he begins, never once raising his head, never once opening his eyes. Walt’s snoring, the radio, the rain—all of it fades while Beck talks.
Three years into a poli-sci major, he realized a) he hated poli-sci and b) he hated college. After a summer course in photography (here, I choked down a gag reflex), he discovered his “true passion” (another gag). His parents, divorced, did not approve. He took what little savings he had and purchased a one-way Greyhound ticket from Baton Rouge to Burlington, Vermont. It was to be “a photography pilgrimage.” (And once more.) “My parents think I’m at school,” he says. “Big state school like that, it’ll be another week, probably, before anyone realizes.” Lifting his head, he smiles, but his heart isn’t in it. He unzips his duffel bag, pulls out the camera. We sit in silence for a few seconds while Beck takes pictures of the rain against the windshield.
“And what about the shiner?” I point to his black eye. This, being a milder version of what I’d like to ask—how did you end up in the Independence police station, hmmmmm?
He trains the camera on a bug trapped between the windshield and the wiper blade. “I punched a guy. Twice, actually. He got me once in between.”
“Jane’s Diner,” I whisper.
He nods, and begins a new story. And as soon as he starts, I know exactly how it will end.
24
The Coming Together of Ways
THE DOOR TO the men’s room was locked.
Beck stood, waiting in the hallway, when a young Hispanic girl exited the ladies’ room next to him. (19A and B must be mother and daughter, a beautiful Hispanic duo . . .) “Her eyes,” said Beck, “were puffy and red, and I thought it was odd, but she was probably thirteen, and with girls that age, you just never know.” Seconds later, Beck saw a grown man come out of the same ladies’ room. “His eyes were strange, like glazed over or something . . .” (I notice his eyes are wet and shiny, but it’s not from crying or the rain.) The man shrugged, pointed to the locked men’s room, said, “It couldn’t wait.” Minutes later, Beck entered the men’s room, did his business, and, while washing his hands, peered into the mirror. Behind him was a single stall. He frowned, and stepped back into the hallway. When he knocked on the ladies’ room, there was no answer. He poked his head inside, gave a faint, “Hello?” Still, nothing. Confident no one was inside, Beck entered the ladies’ room, letting the door close behind him. “It just felt odd, you know?” said Beck, his camera dangling from his neck. “Like—dim, or something.” (The bathroom dissolves into a reddish hue, the corners dimming like the vignette of an old art house film.) Beck looked around, noted the single stall—one stall. He remembered the look on the face of the girl only minutes ago, puffy and red from crying, and he felt the blood rush from his face to his gut. (His words are ice. They hit my gut first, then spread in all directions . . .) Turning, Beck exited the ladies’ room, walked down the hall, and into the main dining area. “I saw the girl first thing,” said Beck. “She was sitting in a booth with her mom and another couple. Her mom was chitchatting across the table, but the little girl—that girl wasn’t saying a word. She looked shell-shocked.” (We’d seen the footage of the hyena and the gazelle, and it always ended the same.)
When Beck scanned the room, he found the man sitting on a barstool, eating pie, “as if nothing had happened.” (“Nothing will happen,” he says, his voice thick. “Nothing you don’t want.”)
Beck walked calmly to the bar.
Tapped the man on the shoulder.
“AND I PUNCHED him. Twice. In front of a cop.”
“What?”
Beck adjusts the focus of his camera, goes back to taking pictures while he talks. “It actually ended up turning out okay. The cop was this gung-ho idiot starved for action.”
“Randy. With the huge head?”
“Yeah, you know him?”
“Sort of. No, not really. It doesn’t matter, go on.”
Beck raises an eyebrow and scans through the photos he just shot. He hasn’t met my eyes for a while now, and I wonder if there’s something he’s not telling me. There are only so many angles a person can get of rain on a windshield.
“Officer Randy interrogated us,” he says, “and pretty much sorted it out. I got a lifetime ban from Greyhound for fighting, and spent my last few dollars at a Red Roof Inn in Union last night. They called me in this morning for some follow-up questions, then turned me loose.”
“And what about Poncho Man?”
Beck stops taking pictures, but doesn’t look at me. “How’d you know he was wearing a poncho?”
I hear my mother’s voice in my ear. Tell him. “I just—I remember him. I remember a creepy-looking guy, is all. In a poncho.”
Beck takes a second before he answers my question. “He’s in jail.”
“They arrested him?”